Posts: 26 to 46 of 46

Re: Revolutions

This is exactly what I'm talking about. People decided for themselves what the Matrix movies were about, and then complained when the Wachowskis told them that it wasn't about that.

I'm not assuming anything - I'm going off the information that was actually presented to me in the first film. Such as a lengthy sequence of how much effort it took just to get Neo out of bed for the first time, and dialog such as:

"Why do my eyes hurt?""You've never used them."

and then watching real-world Neo lean tiredly against walls for most of the rest of the film, etc.

So I'm not assuming it, it was actually part of the movie they made.

Gregory Harbin wrote:

But the fact of the matter remains that the Wachowskis never contradicted their film, only your assumptions about what that film meant.

While that's not the case - see above - the Wachowskis do get to make whatever movie they want. And I'm allowed to like it, or not. I thought their sequels were flawed and just explained why. But neither the Wachowskis nor I will be losing sleep over it.

Gregory Harbin wrote:

And you're absolutely right, that was an awesome scene in the first movie, but it would have been horrible if that was the draw of the next FOUR HOURS. You can't make a trilogy with that as your only drama.

I wasn't suggesting that Super Neo/Weak Neo should have been the only plot of the sequels, I was suggesting that as a B plot it would have been more interesting dramatically than the Super Neo/Super Neo B plot they went with.

And again, it's only my opinion, and the sun will still come up tomorrow.

Re: Revolutions

Also, we talked about it in the commentary but not here, nobody asks the obvious question when Neo mind-blows-up the Sentinel, "If he could only do that in the Matrix but it looks like he can do it in the 'real world,' then is there a chance that the 'real world' is another Matrix?" Nobody mentions or even seems to consider the possibility, which would seem like the immediately obvious answer.

Re: Revolutions

BrianFinifter wrote:

Also, we talked about it in the commentary but not here, nobody asks the obvious question when Neo mind-blows-up the Sentinel, "If he could only do that in the Matrix but it looks like he can do it in the 'real world,' then is there a chance that the 'real world' is another Matrix?" Nobody mentions or even seems to consider the possibility, which would seem like the immediately obvious answer.

Well, yeah, totally. That was sort of the assumption everyone had going into Revolutions. And then, film 3…didn't go in that direction at all. It's entirely possible that the Wachowskis just decided to subvert expectations every chance they had.

Oh, you think Neo's only a bad-ass in the Matrix? He's not, he can do shit in the real world too!

Oh, you think the real world is a Matrix too? It's not, we're just not going to explain ourselves!

Oh, you think Neo's going to use his real world powers to defeat the machines? He's not, he's just going to talk to them and then punch Smith for forty-five minutes!

Oh, you think the series is going to end with The Matrix being shut down? It's not, we're going to pussy out!

Re: Revolutions

I think our main points of disagreement are over what the first magic bean is in the first place. You seem to be willing to excuse anything at all that happens in the Matrix.

The first magic bean is that the world we live in is a video game. OK, swallowed.

But then Morpheus tells Neo that the rules can be bent, and even broken. In what video game can you bend and break the rules just because you know it's a game? The only way I know to bend the rules in a video game is to hack. Hacking, then, is the second bean, is it not?

No, because you can hack a video game. If the simulated world is a video game, and video games can be hacked, it follows as a part of the premise that you can hack the simulated world.

Gregory Harbin wrote:

Or if it's not the second bean, if it's connected to the first bean, then why can Neo only hack the Matrix? Why can't he hack the machines themselves?

At what point does he have access to the machines in the same way that he has access to the Matrix? He doesn't, and any answer that you can give me is pure speculation and not based on any of the established rules of the movie universe, let alone actually explained by the films.

Gregory Harbin wrote:

As you say, if something doesn't violate the established rules, than it's OK. Hasn't hacking already been established?

No, the Matrix has been established, and hacking the Matrix exists as a logical extension of the Matrix. I would not expect Neo to be able to hack outside the Matrix any more than I would expect him to know kung fu or fly.

Gregory Harbin wrote:

And wasn't the overarching question of the first film WHY Neo was so much better at hacking than the rest of them?

Not really. At best, the question was IF he was any better at hacking than the rest.

I will grant you that what makes someone "The One" is never adequately addressed in any of the three films, but I don't see how that supports your argument.

Gregory Harbin wrote:

Why can't this be explained by Neo having some sort of remote hacking ability?

Neo requires a direct hardware connection to the Matrix when he does whatever he does to "hack" it. There is no establishment of a remote hacking ability. There is no indication of a remote hacking ability. And even if it could be explained by some remote hacking ability, it isn't explained by a remote hacking ability. It isn't explained at all.

Gregory Harbin wrote:

You seem to be begging for an as-you-know scene to explain it.

You seem to be misunderstanding the term.

An "as-you-know" scene implies that both characters already know the information being spoken and are repeating it solely for the sake of the audience.

The simple fix to any as-you-know scene is to make sure one of the characters doesn't know, and needs it explained to them as our representative in the scene.

Considering that every moment of the films not filled with an action setpiece involves characters explaining things to each other, because one of them knows more than the other and is trying to bring him or her up to speed. I don't think it would be out of place or an as-you-know scene to have one more, especially one this crucial.

Gregory Harbin wrote:

My argument, I guess, is a prima facie one. It happened, there's only one explanation, so there you go.

There are multiple explanations for why it happened, the most likely being that the Wachowskis were just making shit up as they went along.

I think where we really differ is that you seem intent on believing that they had a good reason for doing it, and then concocting out of whole cloth what that reason might be. I see no reason to accept the premise that it was a competent and reasoned choice in the first place.

Re: Revolutions

DorkmanScott wrote:

But the problem is that you're talking about programming. That's software. Wifi requires hardware, and that's not something you're just going to pick up or become infected with because you ran afoul of an agent. It has to be installed.

I'm assuming he has hardware from the machines. I would guess that he was given special treatment from the Machines since he was the One. If he had made a different choice with the Architect this hardware might have been used to reboot the Matrix (or whatever ridiculous plot it was). I prefer the first idea over the Smith idea but the encounter with Smith could have caused a software exchange of some sort that downloaded to the hardware that he already had. Isn't it implied that they all have some sort of hardware since they can jack in?

PS I'm not very knowledgeable about computer tech so forgive me if I use the wrong terms.

Re: Revolutions

Let me make this clear from the up-front: I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

But that said, it didn't bother me when Neo short-circuited the Sentinels at the end of Reloaded. And it didn't bother me when he blew up the artillery-shell-things in Revolutions.

But it bothered the shit out of me that after he'd been blinded he could still "see."

The other stuff? It's at least possible to fanwank that. Neo left a residual "echo" of himself in the Matrix after his encounter with the Architect. (How? Don't care, just roll with me for a sec.) That "echo" manifested itself in the real world as an override directive in the machines' programming. The Sentinels self-destructed or whatever because they were about to harm Neo. Same with the artillery shells. Is this a good explanation? Not particularly, but I would have gone along with it. As Trey likes to say occasionally, "I'm going to allow this."

But the whole "seeing" thing? There's no way that can be handwaved or fanwanked. We're talking about Neo, outside the Matrix, somehow getting sensory input that he should not be getting. It simply can't be explained by the established rules of the universe.

But frankly, even that could have been played with in a way that would have salvaged the sequels for me. Remember Morpheus' speech from the dojo? "It has rules, rules like gravity. Some can be bent, others can be broken." Of course this makes literal sense in the Matrix — Morpheus and the others, and Neo most of all, are in a video game, and they've got the cheat codes. Morpheus teaches him to turn on noclip, and at the end of the movie Neo stumbles upon god mode.

All Neo had to do was say to Morpheus, half-conscious, in a whisper, "Some can be bent, others can be broken." And I'd be like, "Wow, okay. They're expanding the premise of the first movie to tell us that reality is more nuanced and complex than we think it is."

A second magic bean? Eh, maybe, depending on how it's handled on the page and on the screen. Done right, it could have been, there's only one magic bean, but it's larger and more interesting than you thought it was.

But the whole "Neo as the blind prophet" thing was just bullshit, sorry, but it was. Not only was it unsupported — nay, unsupportable! — by anything that came before or after, it was a shameless rip-off of Muad'dib's character arc from the first Dune sequel novel, and yes, I'm a nerd, please kill me. At least in that case it was established early on that the character had powers either supernatural or at least preternatural, and the whole "where we're going we don't need eyes" thing was built upon that. But Neo with his magical spidey senses? Bullshit, I say. Bullshit.

That said, I have to confess I actually like the Matrix sequels. They're not great, but they entertain me. I just don't wanna think about them very hard, 'cause it angries up the blood.

Re: Revolutions

"But it bothered the shit out of me that after he'd been blinded he could still 'see.'"

Really? That bothered you? If he can "see" in the matrix (they don't use their physical eyes when they are jacked in and he can see the code at the end of movie one) and can feel the squids (hinting that he is connected to the machine world), what makes it so difficult for you to believe that once he is blinded he can "see" the code? His brain is simply giving him the same sensory feedback that he was receiving in the Matrix.

"There is no indication of a remote hacking ability. And even if it could be explained by some remote hacking ability, it isn't explained by a remote hacking ability. It isn't explained at all."

You could take the Oracle's "the power of the One extends back to the source" as the explanation, albeit a "mystical" metaphor for a technical idea.

I think one of the points of the sequels was to say that things like "love", which we can see as a transcendent spiritual idea, are just words to express things that also have a technical aspect. And that things with technical aspects can be spiritual. It's part of the "Machines are not so different from us" idea. I know the overall idea was that the Matrix represents the "mind", Zion represents the "body", and the Machine World is the "spirit". At the end these have re-connected to make one unified whole. These ideas are interesting but the brothers tried to ram them all into two sequels and made a giant mess.

This also goes into how he can be in Limbo (MOBILE ave. get it! Yeesh). If he has a wifi connection to the Machine world, his mind can stay in the Matrix without his body being jacked in. Or he is just a Buddha and he transcended mere logic. Who needs explanations when your enlightened man!

As much as that last statement was a joke, it is possible that we are taking the technological side way too seriously. Perhaps the point (assuming there is one) is transcending the physical. The Architect did seem to be the epitome of logical assholeishness. He didn't get the transcendent nature of human beings but only saw the cold logical program side of us. Maybe the point was that we aren't supposed to know why, but only ask the questions of ourselves. Maybe the Architect IS that side of us that wants all the numbers to fall in line. He will only believe what the math tells him he can believe and will therefore never understand our true nature. The Oracle on the other hand, as the literal Yin to his Yang (see her earrings), is all about exploring our potential which is why she doesn't give any solid answers. That is why the movie ends as it does. Both sides are needed to make the unified whole and a new world is created from that unity by the young girl who is herself a seeming contradiction (a program made out of Love). I just thought that it may have been more interesting if Neo had fallen in love with a program (or HE was a program!) and the girl was their child. That would have made more narrative sense.And the name Trinity would have had more significance if they had a child that re-created the world.PS. They still made two big piles of shit.

Re: Revolutions

Re: Revolutions

Apparently the Online game explained how Neo could connect with the machines without being plugged in. It's due to the "Biological Interface Program".

"Despite having "died" during the course of the third film, Trinity made a return to the series in the official continuation, The Matrix Online. Taking on a major role in the game's final chapters it was revealed both she and Neo were actually the cumulation of decades of Machine research into translating human DNA perfectly into Machine code, allowing them to interface directly with technology without the need for simulated interfaces."

Re: Revolutions

Alright, I was daydreaming today, and I happened to come up with an idea of what this movie should have been.

You can keep Reloaded, I have no problem with it...aside from the last sixty seconds. The "twist ending" is anticlimactic and it makes no sense. Have Neo be knocked out after (yes) disabling the Sentinels. Instead of the ending being the reveal of Bane as a bad guy, Neo wakes up on a steel bed in an enormous warehouse. Disoriented, he staggers around, and sees on the bed next to him...AGENT SMITH.

OH SHIT, THEY'RE IN A SECOND MATRIX.

You see, the machines created two Matrixes (Matrices?). They knew that the program was flawed, and that people would eventually break out. So they made the "real world" one of constant conflict, so that people would be too distracted to consider the obvious possibility that the "real world" wasn't real at all. The Agents were actually real people, programmed to play the part of the villain in the game that the machines had set up. Now, I know that the phrase "Neo and Smith work together to stop the bad guy" sounds terrible, and that's where someone else might take it, so I won't. Smith wakes up too, and he feels totally betrayed. He worked hard to attain his goals. He trusted his reality. Now, he's a pathetic human, no better than the ones he mocked and tortured for years. While Neo goes to find the true creator of The Matrices seeking answers, Smith goes to find him seeking revenge. It becomes a cat-and-mouse game between the two of them, and eventually they become less concerned with the true Architect than each other. Throughout, Neo explores the desolate, horrifying world that humanity has left behind. At the end, Neo reaches the true Architect, only to find him dead, with Smith waiting. Neo defeats him (somehow, still haven't worked out a battle scene in the real world). Neo comes to realize that there is nothing for humanity in reality. We lost. He uses his computer skills (you know, the ones that they set up in the first film that had no impact later on?) to personally reprogram the Matrices, making escape from either of them impossible. He assumes the role of the Architect, doomed to watch over his creation for eternity.

Whoa, don't know where that came from. I was just hoping to explain the orange code, and Neo's powers outside the Matrix, but then...THAT.

Re: Revolutions

Well, then he's actually in a Mandelbrot set, then isn't he? And, as a wise man once said, that's one bad-ass fucking fractal.

Seriously, tho, I'm totally on board with any version of Matrix 2 and 3 that brings the sexy back: computer hacking, parasitic bugs that are tracking devices, running away from things....

Also, as I see it, you have three choices as to what to do with Smith: 1) Make him the same super-villain as before 2) Make him a super-duper-villain 3) Make him turn friendly bonus) hand-wave him away as deleted or corrupt

All these choices have problems. 1 and 3 are too easy on the protagonists; you pretty much have to amp up the danger for the heroes in act 2, and the sequel generally becomes act 2 in a larger story. So the villain of any sequel is almost always more powerful than the one in the first movie—but of course it doesn't have to be the same villain.

I think 3 would work best for Matrix, provided that you actually had Smith be reassigned or reprogrammed and Neo went to him instead of going to the Oracle (which was all BS in the first place and which the sequels don't need), and Smith was actually weirdly neutral and basically harmless. How freaky would it be to see your nemesis from the first film essentially lobotomized in the sequels? Of course, Neo then needs a different foe in 2 and 3, and that, of course, is Smith's boss.

Re: Revolutions

Thought I'd say two things here:

Point 1

Trey wrote:

Which was the set up for the best scene in the original movie: when Neo and co. are in the Matrix and Cypher is on the ship with the power to kill them all with the flick of a switch - and Neo is utterly powerless to stop him.

Yes, but that scene ended with Cypher tempting "fate" to intervene - and then Tank turned out to have survived and fried him to death.

And then during the "heist" in Reloaded, a bridge screw gets loose, Final Destination style, which causes the Saw guy to fall to his death, and cause said bridge to impale the Vigilant's operator shortly before that ship gets blown up.

This seems to imply that had the two survived until the explosion, they might've alarmed the Neb crew in time for them to abort the operation - instead, Link and Trinity are too late to warn them, which causes Trinity to go into the Matrix and thus fulfill Neo's dream sequence.

Even if it doesn't imply that (which would be a flaw in the scriptwriting, I suppose), the way it's shot and presented still conveys rather strongly that the "loose screw" isn't just a random accident and there's a significance to everything that's happening.

So these 2 moments in M1 and Reloaded already set up the possibility of "magic in real world" - Neo's superpowers don't entirely come out of nowhere.

On the other hand of course, this set-up is one of the several things that get dropped by Revolutions - so it's not resolved at any point.

Point 2So has anyone else noticed the close similarity between the last 2/3rds of Revolutions (i.e. minus the Jabba part), and Return of the King?

If you want to get the most out of this movie, here's a recommendation: start watching it somewhere into the 2nd act (Neo in the subway station right before he gets freed; the Oracle scene; or maybe after Smith takes over the Oracle and it cuts to Bane, just somewhere in that general area), and pretend like you haven't seen anything that's come before:you just turned on the TV, and are naturally led to assume that the "Matrix trilogy" is some kind of LOTR rip-off redressed in a cyberpunk setting and you're watching the climactic 3rd chapter of it.

It... holds up surprisingly well. In fact, when you consider how LOTR tends to be universally praised in the same breath as M3 is "panned", it's baffling how small the difference in quality is: some small pacing/plotting issues, the Kid opens the gate pretentiously etc., but other than that it's almost as good.

Re: Revolutions

El Nameaux-Standardon wrote:

Thought I'd say two things here:

Point 1

Trey wrote:

Which was the set up for the best scene in the original movie: when Neo and co. are in the Matrix and Cypher is on the ship with the power to kill them all with the flick of a switch - and Neo is utterly powerless to stop him.

Yes, but that scene ended with Cypher tempting "fate" to intervene - and then Tank turned out to have survived and fried him to death.

And then during the "heist" in Reloaded, a bridge screw gets loose, Final Destination style, which causes the Saw guy to fall to his death, and cause said bridge to impale the Vigilant's operator shortly before that ship gets blown up.

This seems to imply that had the two survived until the explosion, they might've alarmed the Neb crew in time for them to abort the operation - instead, Link and Trinity are too late to warn them, which causes Trinity to go into the Matrix and thus fulfill Neo's dream sequence.

Even if it doesn't imply that (which would be a flaw in the scriptwriting, I suppose), the way it's shot and presented still conveys rather strongly that the "loose screw" isn't just a random accident and there's a significance to everything that's happening.

So these 2 moments in M1 and Reloaded already set up the possibility of "magic in real world" - Neo's superpowers don't entirely come out of nowhere.

On the other hand of course, this set-up is one of the several things that get dropped by Revolutions - so it's not resolved at any point.

Point 2So has anyone else noticed the close similarity between the last 2/3rds of Revolutions (i.e. minus the Jabba part), and Return of the King?

If you want to get the most out of this movie, here's a recommendation: start watching it somewhere into the 2nd act (Neo in the subway station right before he gets freed; the Oracle scene; or maybe after Smith takes over the Oracle and it cuts to Bane, just somewhere in that general area), and pretend like you haven't seen anything that's come before:you just turned on the TV, and are naturally led to assume that the "Matrix trilogy" is some kind of LOTR rip-off redressed in a cyberpunk setting and you're watching the climactic 3rd chapter of it.

It... holds up surprisingly well. In fact, when you consider how LOTR tends to be universally praised in the same breath as M3 is "panned", it's baffling how small the difference in quality is: some small pacing/plotting issues, the Kid opens the gate pretentiously etc., but other than that it's almost as good.

Context can make all the difference in the world, though. Because, as noted on the FIYH commentary, LOTR wasn't supposed to work. No one had done anything like it. The Matrix, on the other hand, was its own success, a self-contained story that didn't require Reloaded or Revolutions.